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Statement On Behalf Of The United Nations Special Envoy For Syria
No full textStatement On Behalf Of The United Nations Special Envoy For Syri
Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s Statement And Answers To Media Questions At A Joint News Conference With Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif And Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu Following A Meeting Of The Astana Process Guarantor States, Astana
No full textForeign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s Statement And Answers To Media Questions At A Joint News Conference With Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif And Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu Following A Meeting Of The Astana Process Guarantor States, Astan
Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov�s Opening Remarks At Talks With Head Of The High Negotiations Committee (Hnc) Nasr Al-hariri, Moscow
No full textForeign Minister Sergey Lavrov�s Opening Remarks At Talks With Head Of The High Negotiations Committee (Hnc) Nasr Al-hariri, Mosco
Statement By Panos Moumtzis, Regional Humanitarian Coordinator For The Syria Crisis, On Attacks On Health Services And Staff In Northern Syria
No full textStatement By Panos Moumtzis, Regional Humanitarian Coordinator For The Syria Crisis, On Attacks On Health Services And Staff In Northern Syri
Human Rights Council Thirty-seventh Session 26 February – 23 March 2018 Agenda Item 4 Human Rights Situations That Require The Council’s Attention. “i Lost My Dignity”: Sexual And Gender-based Violence In The Syrian Arab Republic Conference Room Paper Of The Independent International Commission Of Inquiry On The Syrian Arab Republic
No full textHuman Rights Council Thirty-seventh Session 26 February – 23 March 2018 Agenda Item 4 Human Rights Situations That Require The Council’s Attention. “i Lost My Dignity”: Sexual And Gender-based Violence In The Syrian Arab Republic Conference Room Paper Of The Independent International Commission Of Inquiry On The Syrian Arab Republi
SECURITY COUNCIL, 73RD YEAR : 8209TH MEETING, MONDAY, 19 MARCH 2018, NEW YORK
No full textThe situation in the Middle East This record contains the text of speeches delivered in English and of the translation of speeches delivered in other languages
SECURITY COUNCIL, 73RD YEAR : 8217TH MEETING, TUESDAY, 27 MARCH 2018, NEW YORK
No full textThe situation in the Middle East Report of the Secretary-General on the implementation of Security Council resolutions 2139 (2014), 2165 (2014), 2191 (2014), 2258 (2015), 2332 (2016) and 2393 (2017
Security Council, 73rd Year : 8233rd Meeting, Saturday, 14 April 2018, New York
No full textThreats To International Peace And Security. The Situation In The Middle EastUnited Nations S/PV.8233
Security Council
Seventy-third year
8233rd meeting
Saturday, 14 April 2018, 11 a.m.
New York
Provisional
President: Mr. Meza-Cuadra . (Peru)
Members: Bolivia (Plurinational State of). . Mr. Llorentty Solíz
China. . Mr. Ma Zhaoxu
Côte d’Ivoire. . Mr. Tanoh-Boutchoue
Equatorial Guinea. . Mr. Ndong Mba
Ethiopia. . Mr. Alemu
France. . Mr. Delattre
Kazakhstan. . Mr. Umarov
Kuwait. . Mr. Alotaibi
Netherlands. . Mrs. Gregoire Van Haaren
Poland. . Mr. Radomski
Russian Federation. . Mr. Nebenzia
Sweden . Mr. Skoog
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland . Ms. Pierce
United States of America. . Mrs. Haley
Agenda
Threats to international peace and security
The situation in the Middle East
This record contains the text of speeches delivered in English and of the translation of
speeches delivered in other languages. The final text will be printed in the Official Records
of the Security Council. Corrections should be submitted to the original languages only. They
should be incorporated in a copy of the record and sent under the signature of a member
of the delegation concerned to the Chief of the Verbatim Reporting Service, room U-0506
([email protected]). Corrected records will be reissued electronically on the Official
Document System of the United Nations (http://documents.un.org).
18-10891 (E)
*1810891*
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The meeting was called to order at 11.10 a.m.
Adoption of the agenda
The agenda was adopted.
Threats to international peace and security
The situation in the Middle East
The President (spoke in Spanish): In accordance
with rule 37 of the Council’s provisional rules of
procedure, I invite the representative of the Syrian
Arab Republic to participate in this meeting.
The Security Council will now begin its consideration
of the item on its agenda.
I wish to warmly welcome His Excellency
Secretary-General António Guterres, to whom I now
give the floor.
The Secretary-General: I have been following
closely the reports of air strikes in Syria conducted by
the United States, France and United Kingdom. Last
night at 10 p.m. New York time, the United States
President announced the beginning of air strikes with
the participation of France and the United Kingdom,
indicating they were targeting the chemical-weapons
capabilities of the Syrian Government to deter
their future use. The statement was followed by
announcements from Prime Minister May and
President Macron.
The air strikes were reportedly limited to three
military locations inside Syria. The first targets
included the Syrian Scientific Studies and Research
Centre at Al-Mazzah airport in Damascus, the second
an alleged chemical-weapons storage facility west
of Homs and the third an alleged chemical-weapons
equipment storage site and command post, also near
Homs. The Syrian Government announced surface-to-air
missile responsive activity. Both United States
and Russian sources indicated there were no civilian
casualties. However, the United Nations is unable to
independently verify the details of all those reports.
As Secretary-General of the United Nations, it
is my duty to remind Member States that there is an
obligation, particularly when dealing with matters of
peace and security, to act consistently with the Charter
of the United Nations, and with international law in
general. The Charter is very clear on these issues.
The Security Council has the primary responsibility
for the maintenance of international peace and security.
I call on the members of the Security Council to unite
and exercise that responsibility, and I urge all members
to show restraint in these dangerous circumstances and
to avoid any act that could escalate matters and worsen
the suffering of the Syrian people. As I did yesterday
(see S/PV.8231), I stress the importance of preventing
the situation from spiralling out of control.
Any use of chemical weapons is abhorrent, and
the suffering it causes is horrendous. I have repeatedly
expressed my deep disappointment that the Security
Council has failed to agree on a dedicated mechanism
for ensuring effective accountability for the use of
chemical weapons in Syria. I urge the Security Council
to assume its responsibilities and fill that gap, and I
will continue to engage with Member States to help
to achieve that objective. A lack of accountability
emboldens those who use such weapons by providing
them with the reassurance of impunity, and that in
turn further weakens the norm proscribing the use
of chemical weapons, as well as undermining the
international disarmament and non-proliferation
architecture as a whole.
The seriousness of the recent allegations of the use
of chemical weapons in Douma requires a thorough
investigation using impartial, independent and
professional expertise. I reaffirm my full support for the
Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons
and its Fact-finding Mission in the Syrian Arab
Republic in undertaking the required investigation.
The team is already in Syria. I am informed that its
operations plan for visiting the site is complete and that
the Mission is ready to go. I am confident it will have
full access, without any restrictions or impediments to
its performance of its activities.
To repeat what I said yesterday, Syria represents the
most serious threat to international peace and security
in the world today. In Syria we see confrontations
and proxy wars involving several national armies, a
number of armed opposition groups, many national and
international militias, foreign fighters from all over
the world and various terrorist organizations. From the
beginning, we have witnessed systematic violations of
international humanitarian law, international human
rights law and international law in general, in utter
disregard of the letter and spirit of the Charter of the
United Nations. For eight long years, the people of Syria
have endured suffering upon suffering. They have lived
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through a litany of horrors, atrocity crimes, sieges,
starvation, indiscriminate attacks on civilians and
civilian infrastructure, the use of chemical weapons,
forced displacement, sexual violence, torture, detention
and enforced disappearances. The list goes on.
At this critical juncture, I call on all States
Members to act consistently with the Charter of the
United Nations and international law, including the
norms against chemical weapons. If the law is ignored,
it is undermined. There can be no military solution
to the crisis. The solution must be political, and we
must find ways to make real progress towards a
genuine and credible political solution that meets the
aspirations of the Syrian people to dignity and freedom,
in accordance with resolution 2254 (2015) and the
Geneva communiqué (S/2012/522, annex). I have asked
my Special Envoy to come to New York as soon as
possible to consult with me on the most effective way
to accelerate the political process.
The President (spoke in Spanish): I thank the
Secretary-General for his valuable briefing.
I shall now give the floor to those Council members
who wish to make statements.
Mr. Nebenzia (Russian Federation) (spoke in
Russian): Russia has called this emergency meeting of
the Security Council to discuss the aggressive actions
of the United States and its allies against Syria. This is
now our fifth meeting on the subject in a week.
President Putin of the Russian Federation made a
special statement today.
“On 14 April, the United States, with the support
of its allies, launched an air strike on military and
civilian infrastructure targets in the Syrian Arab
Republic. An act of aggression against a sovereign
State on the front lines in the fight against
terrorism was committed without permission from
the Security Council and in violation of the Charter
of the United Nations and the norms and principles
of international law. Just as it did a year ago, when
it attacked Syria’s Al-Shayrat airbase in Syria, the
United States took a staged use of toxic substances
against civilians as a pretext, this time in Douma,
outside Damascus. Having visited the site of the
alleged incident, Russian military experts found
no traces of chlorine or any other toxic agent. Not
a single local resident could confirm that such an
attack had occurred.
“The Organization for the Prohibition of
Chemical Weapons (OPCW) has sent experts to
Syria to investigate all the circumstances. However,
a group of Western countries cynically ignored this
and took military action without waiting for the
results of the investigation.
“Russia vehemently condemns this attack on
Syria, where Russian military personnel are helping
the legitimate Government to combat terrorism.
“The actions of the United States are making
the already catastrophic humanitarian situation in
Syria even worse, inflicting suffering on civilians,
for all intents and purposes enabling the terrorists
who have been tormenting the Syrian people for
seven years, and producing yet another wave
of refugees fleeing the country and the region
in general. The current escalation of the Syrian
situation is having a destructive effect on the entire
system of international relations. History will
have the last word, and it has already revealed the
heavy responsibility that Washington bears for the
carnage in Yugoslavia, Iraq and Libya.”
Russia has done everything it could to persuade the
United States and its allies to abandon their militaristic
plans threatening a new round of violence in Syria and
destabilization in the Middle East. Today, and at the
Council meeting we called yesterday (see S/PV.8231),
the Secretary-General expressed his concern about how
events are developing. Washington, London and Paris,
however, preferred to let the calls for sanity go unheard.
The United States and its allies continue to
demonstrate a flagrant disregard for international law,
although as permanent members of the Security Council
they have a special duty to uphold the provisions of
the Charter. It was a disgrace to hear an article of the
United States Constitution cited as justification of
this aggression. We respect the right of every State to
honour its own fundamental law. But it is high time that
Washington learned that it is the Charter of the United
Nations that governs the international code of conduct
on the use of force. It will be interesting to see how the
peoples of Great Britain and France react to the fact
that their leaders are participating in unlawful military
ventures that invoke the United States Constitution.
These three countries constantly lean towards
neocolonialism. They scorn the Charter and the Security
Council, which they attempt, shamelessly, to use for
their own unscrupulous purposes. They do no serious
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work in the Council. They refuse to consult with us,
while falsely assuring everyone of the opposite. They
are undermining the Council’s authority.
The alleged use of chemical weapons in the Syrian
city of Douma has been cited as the excuse for this
aggression. After an inspection by our specialists,
Russia’s representatives stated unequivocally that no
such incident took place. Moreover, people were found
to have taken part in staging the incident, which was
inspired and organized by foreign intelligence services.
After the matter emerged, the Syrian authorities
immediately invited experts from the Organization
for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons to try to
establish all the circumstances through a field mission
to Douma. The visa formalities were dealt with quickly
and security guarantees given. As the air strikes began,
the specialists were already in Syria and preparing to
begin their work.
I would like to remind Council members and
everyone else that on 10 April (see S/PV.8228), when
our draft resolution (S/2018/322) on ensuring the
security of the work of the OPCW’s special mission was
blocked, we were assured that there was no need for
such a document. They said that no additional effort on
the part of the Security Council was necessary to ensure
that the mission could reach Douma and conduct an
investigation of the chemical incident. Now, however,
we can see that we were absolutely right.
Yesterday, some of our colleagues — some out of
naivety and others out of cynicism — told us that this
situation had allegedly arisen owing to the lack of an
independent investigative mechanism. The aggression
today has shown, as we said, that this had nothing
whatever to do with it. The OPCW-United Nations
Joint Investigative Mission (JIM) was in place during
last year’s attack on the Al-Shayrat airbase, but that
did not stop the United States from launching a missile
attack. After that, the JIM spent six months tailoring
its conclusions to justify the strike. We have said over
and over again that they do not need any investigations.
They did not need them then and they do not need them
now. The organizers of the aggression did not even wait
for the international organization that is authorized to
establish the basic facts to do so. Apparently they had
established and instantly identified the perpetrators,
after disseminating rumours about them through
social networks with the help of the militias they
sponsor and the non-governmental organizations that
are their clients. This was backed up by mythical
secret intelligence. Their masks — or rather the White
Helmets — have come off once again.
We have become accustomed to the fact that their
efforts to achieve their dubious geopolitical aims,
the aggressor countries deliberately blame the so-called
Assad regime for every evil. There has been a
trend recently to shift the blame onto Russia, which,
as they tell it, has been unable to restrain Syria’s so-called
dictator. All of this goes according to a tried-and-
true formula, whereby a provocation results in a
false accusation, which results in a false verdict, which
results in punishment. Is that how these people want
to conduct international affairs? This is hooliganism
in international relations, and not on a petty scale,
given that we are talking about the actions of key
nuclear Powers.
Several missiles were aimed at the research centre
facilities in Barzeh and Jamraya. There have been two
recent OPCW inspections there with unrestricted access
to their entire premises. The specialists found no trace of
activities that would contravene the Chemical Weapons
Convention. Syria’s scientific research institutions are
used for strictly peaceful activities aimed at improving
the efficiency of the national economy. Do they want
Syria to have no national economy left at all? Do they
want to kick this country — only a few years ago one
of the most developed in the Middle East — back into
the Stone Age? Do they want to finish whatever their
sanctions have not yet accomplished? And yet they still
contrive false breast-beating about the sufferings of
ordinary Syrians. But they have no interest in ordinary
Syrians, who are sick of war and glad about the
restoration of the legitimate authorities in the liberated
territories. Their aggressive actions merely worsen the
humanitarian situation that they claim to care about
so deeply. They could end the conflict in Syria in the
space of 24 hours. All that is needed is for Washington,
London and Paris to give the order to their tame
terrorists to stop fighting the legitimate authorities and
their own people.
The attacks were aimed at Syrian military
airfields that are used for operations against terrorist
organizations, a highly original contribution to
the fight against international terrorism, which, as
Washington never tires of saying, is the sole reason
for its military presence in Syria, something that we
are extremely doubtful about. Rather, it is becoming
increasingly clear that those in the West who hide
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behind humanitarian rhetoric and try to justify their
military presence in Syria based on the need to defeat
the jihadists are in fact acting in concert with them
to dismember the country, a design confirmed by the
categorical refusal of the United States and its allies to
assist in the restoration of the areas of Syria that have
been liberated by Government forces.
Their aggression is a powerful blow and a threat to
the prospects for continuing the political process under
the auspices of the United Nations, which, despite the
real difficulties, is moving forward, albeit at varying
speed. Why do they bother endlessly pinning all their
hopes on the Geneva process when they themselves are
driving it straight towards yet another crisis? We urge
the United States and its allies to immediately halt their
acts of aggression against Syria and refrain from them
going forward.
We have proposed a brief draft resolution for the
Council’s attention on which we request that a vote
be held at the end of this meeting. We appeal to the
members of the Security Council. Now is not the time
to evade responsibility. The world is watching. Stand
up for our principles.
Mrs. Haley (United States of America): I thank the
Secretary-General for his briefing today.
This is the fifth Security Council meeting in the
past week in which we have addressed the situation in
Syria. A week has gone by in which we have talked. We
have talked about the victims in Douma. We have talked
about the Al-Assad regime and its patrons, Russia and
Iran. We have spent a week talking about the unique
horror of chemical weapons. The time for talk ended
last night. We are here today because three permanent
members of the Security Council acted. The United
Kingdom, France, and the United States acted not in
revenge, not in punishment and not in a symbolic show
of force. We acted to deter the future use of chemical
weapons by holding the Syrian regime responsible for
its crimes against humanity.
We can all see that a Russian disinformation
campaign is in full force this morning, but Russia’s
desperate attempts at deflection cannot change the
facts. A large body of information indicates that the
Syrian regime used chemical weapons in Douma on
7 April. There is clear information demonstrating
Al-Assad’s culpability. The pictures of dead children
were not fake news; they were the result of the Syrian
regime’s barbaric inhumanity. And they were the result
of the regime’s and Russia’s failure to live up to their
international commitments to remove all chemical
weapons from Syria. The United States, France and the
United Kingdom acted after careful evaluation of those
facts. The targets we selected were at the heart of the
Syrian regime’s illegal chemical-weapon programme.
The strikes were carefully planned to minimize civilian
casualties. The responses were justified, legitimate
and proportionate. The United States and its allies did
everything they could to use the tools of diplomacy to
get rid of Al-Assad’s arsenal of chemical weapons.
We did not give diplomacy just one chance. We
gave it chance after chance. Six times. That is how
many times Russia vetoed Security Council resolutions
to address chemical weapons in Syria. Our efforts
go back even further. In 2013, the Security Council
adopted resolution 2118 (2013), requiring the Al-Assad
regime to destroy its stockpile of chemical weapons.
Syria committed to abiding by the Chemical Weapons
Convention, meaning that it could no longer have
chemical weapons on its soil. President Putin said that
Russia would guarantee that Syria complied. We hoped
that this diplomacy would succeed in putting an end to
the horror of chemical attacks in Syria, but as we have
seen from the past year, that did not happen.
While Russia was busy protecting the regime,
Al-Assad took notice. The regime knew that it could
act with impunity, and it did. In November, Russia used
its veto to kill the Organization for the Prohibition of
Chemical Weapons-United Nations Joint Investigative
Mechanism, the main tool we had to figure out who
used chemical weapons in Syria. Just as Russia was
using its veto (see S/PV.8107), the Al-Assad regime
used sarin, leading to dozens of injuries and deaths.
Russia’s veto was the green light for the Al-Assad
regime to use these most barbaric weapons against the
Syrian people, in complete violation of international
law. The United States and our allies were not going to
let that stand. Chemical weapons are a threat to us all.
They are a unique threat — a type of weapon so evil
that the international community agreed that they must
be banned.
We cannot stand by and let Russia trash every
international norm that we stand for, and allow the
use of chemical weapons to go unanswered. Just as the
Syrian regime’s use of chemical weapons last weekend
was not an isolated incident, our response is part of
a new course charted last year to deter future use of
chemical weapons. Our Syrian strategy has not changed.
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However, the Syrian regime has forced us to take action
based on its repeated use of chemical weapons.
Since the April 2017 chemical attack at Khan
Shaykhoun, the United States has imposed hundreds
of sanctions on individuals and entities involved in
chemical-weapons use in Syria and North Korea.
We have designated entities in Asia, the Middle East
and Africa that have facilitated chemical-weapons
proliferation. We have revoked the visas of Russian
intelligence officers in response to the chemical attack
in Salisbury. We will continue to seek out and call out
anyone who uses and anyone who aids in the use of
chemical weapons.
With yesterday’s